Prince Harry Interviews: Main Points

File Photo: Britain's Prince Harry leaves after attending a service of thanksgiving for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at St Paul's Cathedral in London on June 3, 2022 on the second of four days of celebrations to mark the Platinum Jubilee. (AP)
File Photo: Britain's Prince Harry leaves after attending a service of thanksgiving for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at St Paul's Cathedral in London on June 3, 2022 on the second of four days of celebrations to mark the Platinum Jubilee. (AP)
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Prince Harry Interviews: Main Points

File Photo: Britain's Prince Harry leaves after attending a service of thanksgiving for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at St Paul's Cathedral in London on June 3, 2022 on the second of four days of celebrations to mark the Platinum Jubilee. (AP)
File Photo: Britain's Prince Harry leaves after attending a service of thanksgiving for the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at St Paul's Cathedral in London on June 3, 2022 on the second of four days of celebrations to mark the Platinum Jubilee. (AP)

Here are the main points from Prince Harry's first two television interviews to publicize his new autobiography "Spare", aired on Sunday.

- On why he wrote the book -Harry told Britain's ITV channel he had endured "38 years... of intentional spin and distortion".

He said he had "no intention" of harming anyone in his family by releasing the book.

But he said he needed to speak out as "certain members have decided to get in bed with the devil to rehabilitate their image", at his and his family's expense.

- On his mother's funeral -Harry recalled walking behind Princess Diana's coffin at her funeral in 1997, when he was aged just 12.

"The bridles chinking, you know, going down The Mall, the hooves going down the concrete and the occasional... gravel underneath the foot and the wails from the crowd," he recalled.

"But otherwise complete silence is something that will stick with me forever."

- On Diana's death -Harry said he read the secret government file into Diana's death, redacted by his private secretary of the most graphic descriptions and photographs of the scene.

He said he had driven as an adult through the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, where she died in a car crash.

"There's a lot of things that are unexplained," he said.

"But I've been asked before whether I want to open up a, you know, another inquiry. I don't really see the point at this stage."

In an interview aired later on America's CBS, Harry said that for "many years" part of him believed his mother had just disappeared and that "she would call us and we would go and join her."

- On his relationship with William -Harry spoke of his long-standing sibling rivalry with Prince William, how they used to fight as boys, how William ignored him at school and even tried to get him to shave off his beard before his wedding to Meghan.

He accused William of later swallowing the British tabloid media portrayal of Meghan, leading on one occasion to William physically attacking him.

Harry said that, had he not been having therapy after the trauma of his childhood, he would have fought back.

Harry told CBS he and William were not currently in touch, nor had he spoken to his father "for quite a while."

- On William, Kate and Meghan -Harry said William and Kate were fans of the US legal drama "Suits" in which Meghan starred.

But he said he thought they were not expecting him to get involved with someone like Meghan and "there was a lot stereotyping" of her as a biracial, divorced American actress.

That caused "a bit of a barrier" to welcoming her to the family, he said.

Harry stressed though that William never tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan.

- On claims of royal racism -Harry denied he or Meghan had accused the royal family of racism but said there was unconscious bias at the palace which still needed to be addressed.

A recent incident in which a senior courtier, Susan Hussey, repeatedly asked a black British charity worker, Ngozi Fulani, where she was "really from" was an example of that, he said.

Harry said in the CBS interview: "Hell, I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan."

- On the media -Harry spoke at length about the British tabloid press, accusing it of complicity and collusion with the palace, as well as racism, cronyism and duplicity.

He suggested the negative coverage he and Meghan had suffered was a result of his legal claims for alleged phone hacking against three British newspapers.

The wider aim of the claims, he said, had been to rein in tabloid excesses.

- On what he wants to achieve -Harry said he believed "100 percent" he could reconcile with his family and that could have a "ripple effect across the world".

But he conceded that his father King Charles III and his brother were unlikely to read his book or watch the interview.

- On the future -Harry said he was now "in such a good headspace" to deal with any tricky conversations with his family.

"It's been hard, I'm not going to lie," he said of the last few years, but added: "The reality is I've never been happier."



The Music Industry is Battling AI -- with Limited Success

The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP
The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP
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The Music Industry is Battling AI -- with Limited Success

The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP
The music industry is particularly concerned about non-authorized use of its content to train generative AI models. LLUIS GENE / AFP

The music industry is fighting on platforms, through the courts and with legislators in a bid to prevent the theft and misuse of art from generative AI -- but it remains an uphill battle.

Sony Music said recently it has already demanded that 75,000 deepfakes -- simulated images, tunes or videos that can easily be mistaken for real -- be rooted out, a figure reflecting the magnitude of the issue.

The information security company Pindrop says AI-generated music has "telltale signs" and is easy to detect, yet such music seems to be everywhere.

"Even when it sounds realistic, AI-generated songs often have subtle irregularities in frequency variation, rhythm and digital patterns that aren't present in human performances," said Pindrop, which specializes in voice analysis.

But it takes mere minutes on YouTube or Spotify -- two top music-streaming platforms -- to spot a fake rap from 2Pac about pizzas, or an Ariana Grande cover of a K-pop track that she never performed.

"We take that really seriously, and we're trying to work on new tools in that space to make that even better," said Sam Duboff, Spotify's lead on policy organization.

YouTube said it is "refining" its own ability to spot AI dupes, and could announce results in the coming weeks.

"The bad actors were a little bit more aware sooner," leaving artists, labels and others in the music business "operating from a position of reactivity," said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at the company Emarketer.

"YouTube, with a multiple of billions of dollars per year, has a strong vested interest to solve this," Goldman said, adding that he trusts they're working seriously to fix it.

"You don't want the platform itself, if you're at YouTube, to devolve into, like, an AI nightmare," he said.

Litigation

But beyond deepfakes, the music industry is particularly concerned about unauthorized use of its content to train generative AI models like Suno, Udio or Mubert.

Several major labels filed a lawsuit last year at a federal court in New York against the parent company of Udio, accusing it of developing its technology with "copyrighted sound recordings for the ultimate purpose of poaching the listeners, fans and potential licensees of the sound recordings it copied."

More than nine months later, proceedings have yet to begin in earnest. The same is true for a similar case against Suno, filed in Massachusetts.

At the center of the litigation is the principle of fair use, allowing limited use of some copyrighted material without advance permission. It could limit the application of intellectual property rights.

"It's an area of genuine uncertainty," said Joseph Fishman, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

Any initial rulings won't necessarily prove decisive, as varying opinions from different courts could punt the issue to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the major players involved in AI-generated music continue to train their models on copyrighted work -- raising the question of whether the battle isn't already lost.

Fishman said it may be too soon to say that: although many models are already training on protected material, new versions of those models are released continuously, and it's unclear whether any court decisions would create licensing issues for those models going forward.

Deregulation

When it comes to the legislative arena, labels, artists and producers have found little success.

Several bills have been introduced in the US Congress, but nothing concrete has resulted.

A few states -- notably Tennessee, home to much of the powerful country music industry -- have adopted protective legislation, notably when it comes to deepfakes.

Donald Trump poses another potential roadblock: the Republican president has postured himself as a champion of deregulation, particularly of AI.

Several giants in AI have jumped into the ring, notably Meta, which has urged the administration to "clarify that the use of publicly available data to train models is unequivocally fair use."

If Trump's White House takes that advice, it could push the balance against music professionals, even if the courts theoretically have the last word.

The landscape is hardly better in Britain, where the Labor government is considering overhauling the law to allow AI companies to use creators' content on the internet to help develop their models, unless rights holders opt out.

More than a thousand musicians, including Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, released an album in February entitled "Is This What We Want?" -- featuring the sound of silence recorded in several studios -- to protest those efforts.

For analyst Goldman, AI is likely to continue plaguing the music industry -- as long as it remains unorganized.

"The music industry is so fragmented," he said. "I think that that winds up doing it a disservice in terms of solving this thing."